been partially excited. An opportunity soon offered to gratify it.

Having one day received the accustomed permission to retire a few
minutes from school, the darting of a squirrel across a fallen tree, as
he went abroad, awakened his ruling passion. He sprang after the nimble
animal, until he found himself at the very spot, where he had observed
his school-master to pause in his promenades. His attention was arrested
by observing a kind of opening under a little arbor, thickly covered
with a mat of vines. Thinking, perhaps, that it was the retreat of some
animal, he thrust in his hand, and to his surprise drew forth a glass
bottle, partly full of whisky. The enigma of his master's walks and
inequalities of temper stood immediately deciphered. After the
reflection of a moment, he carefully replaced the bottle in its
position, and returned to his place in school. In the evening he
communicated his discovery and the result of his meditations to the
larger boys of the school on their way home. They were ripe for revolt,
and the issue of their caucus follows:

They were sufficiently acquainted with fever and ague, to have
experimented the nature of tartar emetic. They procured a bottle exactly
like the master's, filled with whisky, in which a copious quantity of
emetic had been dissolved. Early in the morning, they removed the
school-master's bottle, and replaced it by theirs, and hurried back to
their places, panting with restrained curiosity, and a desire to see
what results would come from their medical mixture.

The accustomed hour for intermission came. The master took his usual
promenade, and the children hastened back with uncommon eagerness to
resume their seats and their lessons. The countenance of the master
alternately red and pale, gave portent of an approaching storm.